Phyllis Coates Profile

Phyllis Coates

	(Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell)
15 November 27	is born in Wichita Falls, Texas; her father’s a farmer and sheet metal worker
?	moves with her family to Odessa, Texas, where she attends high school
42	moves to Hollywood as a teenager
?	attends college in California
?	is spotted by vaudeville comedian Ken Murray in a Hollywood and Vine restaurant and is cast for his show
?	works for Earl Carroll
?	tours with the U.S.O.
c. 48	marries director Richard L. Bare
March 49	sues Bare for divorce after only eight months of marriage
23 January 50	marries Robert Nelms
c. 50	her first daughter is born with a congenital hip. She has to be in a cast for a year and a half.
51	socializes with co-star George Reeves and his girlfriend Toni Mannix while filming Superman and the Mole-Men
1 October 53	divorces Nelms
?	marries director Norman Tokar
18 December 56	her son, David, is born in Los Angeles
57	has a child with a physical handicap and an alcoholic grandmother; her mother is in and out of mental institutions
	has a short and strange encounter with actress Noel Neill, her successor on the “Superman“ TV show, at the Eagle-Lion studio in Hollywood; they do not become friends
June 59	plans to star in an upcoming science fiction movie produced by George Reeves, when Reeves unexpectedly shoots himself
60	as a favor for her friend, Z-movie producer Jerry Warren, she’s off to Colossal Cave, New Mexico, to film The Incredible Petrified World
3 October 62	marries Dr. Howard Press in Los Angeles. He's 30; she's 35.
16 August 63	her daughter Laura is born in Los Angeles
66	does a pilot with Bert Lahr, “Thompson’s Ghost,” which never gets off the ground
68	divorces Press with whom she has three children
?	her son becomes a heroine addict
93	the morning she has to leave for New York City for an episode of “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” she receives a telephone call informing her that her son has been found dead from an overdose. He’s later revived at the hospital.
11 October 23	as Phyllis Coates Press, she dies at age 96 in Sonoma, California

Sources: Giseld Dervishi, Ladies of the Western by Michael G. Fitzgerald and Boyd Magers, "From Africa to Metropolis" by Dan Scapperotti for Femme Fatales, Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes by Tom Weaver, www.Ancestry.com
Recommended Books:
Links: Filmography Phyllis Coates at Spooky's Nightmare Mansion